I was on a train this evening and a tall man in his early 40s (I'm 20) sat diagonally from me and smiled at me. I was studying so I gave a slight smile in return and buried my head in my books.
He was watching a football match on his iphone, but after a while I felt like he was staring at me. At the next stop, someone got on the train and he scooted over for the person to sit on the free seat beside him, so he ended up sitting opposite me and continued to stare. I kept studying but I could feel him staring at me.
He finally started speaking to me, asking "studying hard, huh?" and I kept giving short answers and quickly returning to my books and writing. He asked me where I'm from, what languages I speak, and lots of unnecessary questions. I looked around me and saw pretty much everyone else in the vicinity was staring at me. Thank goodness, he got off at the next stop so the whole encounter didn't last more than 15 minutes, saying goodbye and wishing me luck in my studies.
So, why was he talking to me so much? Why do men randomly talk to women they've never met before like that? It wasn't as if it were a cocktail bar, where you'd go specifically to meet up with people, but a train, just going from A to B. I couldn't have made it more obvious that I didn't want to talk to him, not to mention the fact that he was wearing a wedding ring!